(01-08-12) Choose - What difference two dollars a week can make!

Choose – What $2.00 more a week will do!"If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (NASB)My daughter was asking her Grandpa, my Father-in-law, about his life. One of the things he shared struck me; it illustrates the far-reaching impact of even one decision. When Bill was 19 he had a choice to go to work for either Pac Bell or PG&E. He chose the telephone company because they were paying $2.00 (yup, two dollars) more a week back in 1955. “Ten years later,” he said, “Guys at PG&E were making nearly twice as much as I was making.”But it was through his work with Pac Bell that Bill and his family ended up living in Greely Hill (He transferred there from Vallejo) California. It was there he found Christ and attended church with his family, and in 1976 it was Greeley Hill where I ended up as a foreign exchange student. If it had not been for those two dollars a week our paths might never have crossed, I might never have married the best girl ever, Emily might never existed, and that late evening conversation might never have taken place.Bill chose, and it impacted the course of his life, his children's lives, and in time my life, my children’s lives, and who knows how many others' lives. I do not know how many people in Bill’s family were God-fearing, praying kind of folks, but I do know that way before I was born, even before Bill was born there have been praying men and women in my family. I have no doubt that their prayers influenced the choices of others, they certainly did mine.Maybe you're saying, “Come on Hans, that’s just how life works. Anyone can look back and speculate. You don’t need to get all spiritual to explain it all. In fact you don’t even need God for it.”I suppose it depends how big you think God is. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments” Exodus 20:4-6 (NIV). I believe God is big enough to hear the prayers of someone living on one continent and make one job pay two dollars more on another continent to shape lives that are yet to be born and accomplish His purposes. I also believe that the choices we make today have far reaching consequences tomorrow and beyond. That’s why I want God to be involved in the choices I make, only He knows what tomorrow and beyond holds, and I surely desire his lovingkindness and blessing to be unleashed there. I pray that is your heart’s desire as well.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans